


La Fee Verte Ancienne

by Ghislainem70



Series: Victorian Holmes and Watson [3]
Category: Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms, Sherlock Holmes - Arthur Conan Doyle
Genre: Absinthe, Community: acd_holmesfest, Gothic, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-19
Updated: 2017-11-19
Packaged: 2019-02-04 08:47:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,531
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12767346
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ghislainem70/pseuds/Ghislainem70
Summary: Holmes and Watson find themselves alone with the Green Fairy.





	La Fee Verte Ancienne

**Author's Note:**

  * For [a_different_equation](https://archiveofourown.org/users/a_different_equation/gifts).



"There is no use whatever, Watson,” Holmes drawled from his comfortable station on the divan. 

I ceased my hammering at the door and joined him. I declined to admit that my fist was beginning to be the worse for wear, as Holmes had what I consider to be excessive regard for the strength of my constitution. I sometimes doubt that he truly recalls the abject sight I presented when first we met. But I didn't like to disabuse Sherlock Holmes, that most rational of men, of one of his very few unreasonable, yet evidently firmly held notions.

I will not leave you, dear Reader, in suspense. The door that was the recipient of my fruitless hammering was stout, made of ancient mahogany bound with iron bands. It had been locked upon us from the outside by our erstwhile host, Mr. Horace Germain of Chester Square. The room was his wine cellar. He had thoughtfully provided us a lamp.

Holmes seemed as little concerned for our plight as if we were lounging in 221B.

"You look cool enough," I observed, which he did. The lamplight cast interesting shadows over his features, sharp even in what seemed his wholly inappropriate repose. "That lamp won't last much longer."

"Two hours at most," Holmes agreed, sanguine. "Quite long enough."

His lips curled slightly. 

I heard the approach of distant footsteps and made to commence shouting for help once more, but Holmes held a commanding finger to his lips, and we listened in silence. Mr. Horace Germain was, I am certain, listening outside the door.

"Say your last prayers, Watson, for we shall surely perish here," Holmes declaimed in those ringing tones that many a stage actor would rightly be jealous of.

I am not a great church-goer, but I obeyed Holmes by muttering scraps of prayer half-remembered from my time as an Army surgeon, where they often gave far more comfort to men in their desperate hours than I was ever able to do.

At length the footsteps receded.

"Very well, Holmes. You are having one of your little jokes at my expense. Did you arrange for Mr Germain to lock us in this cellar? To what purpose?" I wasn't yet angry, because Holmes looked so self-satisfied that it was impossible to lose my temper with him.

"By no means. And yet, I knew that he would."

"And took no steps to prevent him? He was within my reach and I could easily have overpowered him, as could you yourself have done. Why, Holmes?"

"Because I wish to examine the wall behind that cask without fear of being disturbed. It is the last place Mr. Germain would desire me to look."

The dank stone walls were lined with bottles of what appeared to my undiscerning eye to be fine old wines and spirits. The air was thick with the scent of centuries of aging vintages. A single cask, nearly as tall as I am, stood against the wall. I leaned against it with all my strength. It did not move.

"In that case, why should he allow you to be locked up in the room where the cask is?"

"Because he does not believe me to be capable of discovering the secret of moving the cask."

Here I should apprise you, dear Reader, of the fact that Holmes and I were in Mr. Germain's house under false pretenses as wine merchants. Holmes had apparently done his work too well. Upon mentioning his wish to sample a near-mythical variety of absinthe, purportedly made from a now-extinct variety of wormwood once found only on the slopes of a particular mountain in Switzerland, Mr. Germain offered to allow Holmes a taste of the spirit, if we would accompany him to his wine cellar.

Whereupon we found ourselves promptly locked within what amounted to a prison cell from which there was no apparent escape.

Holmes began to pace the cellar in measured steps, his head sunk deep in thought. I waited, breathless.

"Right..two left… left again… Ah ha!" Holmes knelt and extended his hand. "The lamp, Watson."

He shone the light upon a stone that seemed no different to the others, but when Holmes scrubbed it with the sleeve of his coat, a faint pattern materialised, carved into the stone. Lifting the stone was the work of a moment and a concealed lever appeared, which Holmes pulled. The cask rocked free. Chill, musty air blasted us as Holmes held the lamp high to reveal the mummified remains of a man, heaped in the corner of the tiny chamber behind the cask. His bony hand gripped a bottle, whose contents glowed emerald in the lamplight.

I could only gape in amazement.

"You knew he would be here!"

"Yes. Meet Mr. Ezekiel Germain, true heir to the family fortune."

I peered into what was effectively the poor fellow's crypt. "He has been dead many a year. The air here in this chamber would have shielded his body somewhat from the damp of the cellar. How did you know you would find him here?"

Holmes looked very pleased with himself. "A crude sort of code in the man's account books, easily translated by myself in the work of an hour. It seemed to be what it in fact was, directions to open a secret chamber. The Germains have long been rumoured to possess the sole remaining bottle of La Fee Verte Ancienne — The Old Green Fairy. Its value is almost beyond measure. An apparently, worth killing over."

"I thought Mr Germain killed his cousin here for the family fortune?"

"But look what he enclosed with him. He locked us up at the mention of the fateful green liquor, which means that our Mr. Germain is quite prepared to kill to keep it secret."

"But if this is truly the last bottle of The Old Green Fairy, as you say, Holmes, why would he leave it in the dead man's hands?"

We regarded the pitiful corpse, clutching the fatal bottle to the last.

"Where safer? And, perhaps, as a caution to himself not to imbibe it. La Fee Verte Ancienne is rumoured to hold powers far superior to common absinthe.”

Absinthe was indeed common enough, and its reputed powers of the giving of colourful dreams, or nightmares, was in my considered view highly exaggerated. Most of the men I had had occasion to treat for excessive imbibing of the green stuff had simply overdosed themselves on spirits, absinthe often being distilled from the crudest alcohol. There was something in it, I thought, of the power of a sugar pill one is told is strong medicine, the mind making of it what it wished.

Still, Holmes seemed keen to know for himself. He gently removed the bottle from the corpse's grip using a clean handkerchief between his fingertips.

"Are you curious, Doctor Watson?"

"I resist your infernal cocaine. Why should I care for the supposed 'powers' of an extinct wormwood plant?"

"Don't you wish to know what they are before declining?" He held the bottle closer to the light. "Facts before conclusions, Watson!"

I folded my arms and seated myself on the divan, where on happier days Mr. Ezekiel Germain had likely quaffed wine.

"Very well." I knew Holmes was going to tell me whether I wished to hear or not.

"The wormwood variety in question has been extinct for fifty years. As such, this bottle is at least as old as that, or perhaps older. I cannot make out the label, it has been rubbed out. In my laboratory I could find out more."

We both considered Mr. Ezekiel Germain, gripping the priceless bottle in eternal darkness.

"The plant in question grew in the valley of the Reichenbach in Switzerland."

I tried not to glare at Holmes, but I am unable to hear of that place without the strongest emotion. Holmes gripped my shoulder.

"Forgive me," he said simply, and I nodded.

"The absinthe made from this rare wormwood was reputed to bring dreams and visions of a beauty unequalled by any other absinthe, or even opium, and to, ahem, stir the, ah. . ."

"Passions," I finished. The lamp was perceptibly lower now but I could still detect a dull flush across those marble cheekbones.

Holmes nodded, looking away. "Quite. In a manner that is said to be . . ."

He did not finish this remark either, nor did I help him. His tone, however, was unmistakable. My heart thundered in my breast. This was the only direct reference to bodily passions that I had ever heard Holmes utter.

Holmes placed the emerald bottle on the little wine-table before the divan. Conveniently, there were two wine glasses. I could almost hear my pocket-watch, tucked in my waistcoat, in the long silence that followed.

"How long, Holmes, before Scotland Yard arrives to unlock the door?" I whispered. For this could be the only reason for Holmes's insouciance. 

"One hour, I believe. That was the arrangement, at any rate. They are not always reliable, of course. I have made certain contingent plans in the event of their failure." Holmes whispered too.

I cannot say now whose hand was on the bottle first, only that they joined there.


End file.
